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Updated 2.49pm
AUSTRALIAN POLICE HAVE said that they are helping Irish authorities to solve the mystery of the girl found on Dublin’s O’Connell Street almost one month ago.
Gardaí confirmed that they had identified the girl last night, just hours after a major appeal was launched to find out who she is.
The girl has been named in Australian media as 25-year-old Australian national Samantha Azzopardi.
An initial line of inquiry had suggested that she could have been from eastern Europe, with one lead proposing that she may have been trafficked into the country, but those suggestions have now been dismissed.
A number of media outlets are reporting that the women has up to 40 different aliases.
The investigation into the girl’s identity was launched after she was found in a distressed state on O’Connell Street in Dublin on 10 October. More than 2,000 man-hours and over 115 lines of inquiry were pursued as part of the investigation into finding out who she is.
The girl was believed to speak limited English and had been unable to talk to investigating officers or healthcare workers.
The Australian Federal Police confirmed that it received a request for assistance via Interpol from Irish authorities on Wednesday morning (Tuesday evening Irish-time).
“The AFP, in conjunction with appropriate police forces, are assisting Irish authorities with this request,” said a spokesperson for the AFP.
“As this matter is ongoing, it is not appropriate for the AFP to comment any further”.
The comments were echoed by An Garda Síochána, who issued a brief statement just before 9pm last night to confirm that the girl had been identified.
Gardaí said that they are now “following a definite line of inquiry” and will be working closely with Australian police and the HSE “to finalise the matter”.
Authorities in Ireland had sought the assistance of Interpol, the Missing Persons Bureau, the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Unit and the Garda National Immigration Bureau as part of the case.
Gardaí had taken the unprecedented step last week of going to the High Court to seek permission to release a photograph of her as investigations hit a dead end. The photograph was released yesterday morning.
First published today at 7.30am; Additional reporting Sinéad O’Carroll
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Eaten bread is soon forgotten. If their was a measles epidemic in the wealthier countries the anti-vaxx brigade would soon be lining their kids up.
@Danielle Cafolla: Yep too removed from the devastating effects of preventable diseases.
Wealthier countries have more internet access where any old Yahoo can make up some facts and write it….coincidence I don’t think so
@John Horan: 100% agree. I’d even go one step further with your analogy. I work in this area, and in my experience the vast majority of anti-vaxx parents are middle-class, and moderately educated. They consider themselves to be well-read on the topic, but unfortunately via unreliable sources, probably no better than Yahoo. The Dunning Kruger effect in action.
I have seen so many comments online, and twice face to face, where someone says something along the line of
“Sure we don’t need to vaccinate for . Nobody gets that anymore.”
It actually causes me physical pain where I hear such stupidity!
@The Bob:
And my personal favourite:
“We all had measles as kids, sure it never did us any harm…”
(*apart from the 50,000+ deaths it causes annually)
People in developed countries have more access to social media platforms and are subsequently influenced by Facebook pages endorsed by the anti-vaxxer movement. As such, they fail to vaccinate their children in the mistaken belief that it causes a raft of conditions such as autism, ADHD etc. it’s amazing how a few “likes”and “shares” lure the gullible in to unsafe practices regarding their children.
Always took the French as being intelligent. Sorry that my presumption is wrong.
Don’t forget to ask the questions, it’s amazing the lengths the Pharma will go to , to make a buck . My question would be are we 100% sure about these vaccines or is it a matter of they do the job , why now is there so many cases of autism in our children like never before. Many questions to be asked and answered but then there is no money to be made .
@rosemarie slamon: Your comment would be hilarious if there wasn’t kids dying over this level of stupidity. Can you join the idiots queue at the back please?
@rosemarie slamon:
Please point to ONE SINGLE study that has found a greater prevalence of autism in vaccinated vs. unvaccinated cohorts of kids.
I’ll wait (but I won’t hold my breath if that’s ok).
@rosemarie slamon: ah Jebus. So you mention “many” questions to be asked then pose precisely 2, that are easily answered. Yes we’re quite sure about the vaccines. And they have NOTHING to do with bloody autism. The increase in diagnosis you mention is because of (to list a few) the widening of diagnostic criteria, a greater understanding of autism among all stakeholders (general public, parents, educators, health and medical professionals), not reactively sticking those with autism in institutions and a society and economy that allows more people with autism (though not enough) to lead fulfilling successful lives which leads to greater visibility as a whole and a greater likelihood that they will have children & ASD is genetic so more people with ASD. Any other questions darling?
@rosemarie slamon: Maybe you could reach out to a grieving mother in the third world who has watched their child die of a sickness that is preventable, a mother who never had access to vaccination. Perhaps you could explain to her your illogical anti scientific privileged opinions based on Internet nonsense . I am sure she would be gobsmacked by the illogical nonsense you have accrued from your position of safety and luxury. Of course its easy to be illogical when you cushioned from the real world, the world where children die in the tens of thousands from lack of basics such as medical care or access to clean water and diseases that we thought we consigned to the past .
@rosemarie slamon: “why now is there so many cases of autism in our children like never before.”
Because milder and more numerous cases are getting diagnosed, the diagnostic has net has widened (diagnosing milder cases), more cases are spotted and fewer cases are slipping though. The real number has not changed.
To confirm that autism has not increased, psychologists went into the community in the UK to look for adults with undiagnosed autism, who were missed as children. They found autism is as common in adults as it is in children today, proving conclusively that autism did not increase over time.
“The prevalence of ASD in this population is similar to that found in children. The lack of an association with age is consistent with there having been no increase in prevalence and with its causes being temporally constant.”
So no, …. vaccines don’t cause autism and anyway autism isn’t really increasing in frequency.
References:
Brugha, T. et al. 2011. Epidemiology of autism spectrum disorders in adults in the community in England. Archives of general psychiatry, 68(5), pp.459-465.
@The Great Unwashed: I think Dr Whitfield did a great study once. In his shed I believe…
@rosemarie slamon: nothing you just said is true. I’d argue about it but don’t have the energy. I’d cite my credentials as someone with a background in genetics, medicine and statistics as grounds for what I’m saying but you’d probably just accuse me of being “brainwashed” or working for big pharma (or hilariously the time I was told my years and years of training make me “no more qualified” to weigh in than the anti vaxxer with a smartphone) anyway boils down to….
Vaccinations = good,
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis as a result of measles = bad.
Autism = genetic developmental disorder unrelated to vaccinations but NOT in utero exposure to vaccine preventable diseases
Autism prevelence on the rise = baseless claim but even if trend was an increase numerous etiological and diagnostic factors would be at play the only one definitively not linked = vaccinations
@rosemarie slamon: Older men more likely to have kids further along the autistic spectrum. In general people are having kids at older ages, this trend has been in place (in developed world at least) since the 1960s.
@Sarah:
You need to be careful mentioning Dr Whitfield, I got banned from this website for making my opinion of that particular “Dr” abundantly clear.
@java_cakes: I’ve often wondered about that. For some reason, so often only women’s details are studied. They don’t seem to record the ages of the fathers. I don’t know if there is any actual study on this.
Why do we need to have faith in this?? It’s got a well proven track record. Leave the faith for the superstitious.
More worrying, 9% of Irish people surveyed, would’ve been better off being taken by one of the diseases they were most likely vaccinated against as children. Darwin is a great equalizer. I’ve said it before, what the world needs right now is a nice apocalyptic pandemic to even the playing field again.
The best one I heard was a parent sending out birthday invitations for their child that read at the bottom “only vaccinated children please” for the other parents to later find out that the parent sending the invitations hand not got their child vaccinated because they didn’t believe in it!!
They just have more options. In a poor country you take anything that keeps you healthy and pray not to get sick. Any risk associated with the vaccine is outweighed by your lack of ability to deal with illness.
Because how a person feels about something in wealthier countrys counts as rational thought.
Dunning-Kruger Effect in action
G Manning, lots of talk, but no evidence and could you please refrain from calling me darling
@rosemarie slamon: No evidence of what? It’s not darling he should be calling you by the way. You love, are away with the birds.
@rosemarie slamon: ok hon. Your delusion is impressive if nothing else given you’re trying to point to my lack of evidence when everything you said is nonsense. Vaccinations have no link to causing autism and it’s beholden to anyone making such a claim to prove it, which you can’t. I also explained your “increase” in autism for you though David Jordan put more effort in along with citations. Is there anything else we can resolve for you? Bigfoot, mermaids, why fedoras are never a good idea???
@rosemarie slamon: “lots of talk, but no evidence”
One could accuse you of the same.
G Manning, lots of talk but no evidence and could you please refrain from calling me darling
But they do use Mercury, aluminium and Formaldehyde in vaccines and that is what scares people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal_and_vaccines
https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/safety-availability-biologics/common-ingredients-us-licensed-vaccines
Just to say that since 1960s, vaccines came in and autism rates have increased. This is a correlation, not a causation.
In reality higher autism rates are caused by older fathers. In general men have been having kids at older ages since the 1960s.
Instead of labelling anti-vaxx people, please explain the above to them so they can see this is not some kind of giant conspiracy.
Without struggle people become self destructive?
Saying something stupid twice doesn’t make it any more true pet
@G Manning: see
@G Manning: for a second there I thought you were actually intelligent
@rosemarie slamon: well I’ve made a logical argument backed by facts. You’ve done the opposite. Willing to accept vaccines have nothing to do with autism? or are ya headin further down that online, unqualified, ignorant, “my mates friends aunties vaccinated donkey once bad touched a fireman who knew a person with autism…there must be a link!” Brigade?
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